Tilda Swinton Guest DJs on LA Radio Station KCRW

April 16, 2014|Nikara Johns | Variety

Multi-hyphenate Tilda Swinton can now add DJ to her ever-growing list of roles in the entertainment biz.

Swinton guest DJed on the Los Angeles public radio station KCRW on Wednesday, sharing music that served as inspiration on the set of "The Chronicles of Narnia" and as tribute to the late film critic Roger Ebert.

"I always find it a strange question, you know, 'Do you like music?' It's like saying, 'Do you like oxygen?'" she said.

The first song she chose was her friend Marilyn Manson's "Personal Jesus."

"(It's) the thing that I used to listen to and rock out to with my group of monsters when we were making the Narnia film on a mountain in New Zealand," she said onair. "And to keep warm, we would rock out to this."

Swinton switched genres with Barry White's "You're the First, The Last, My Everything." The last time she played this song was to pay tribute to Ebert at Ebert Fest. David Bowie's under-appreciated "Wild is the Wind" and Bjorks' "Mutual Core" were up next on the set list.

Swinton ended her "internal soundtrack," as she called it, with her friend John C. Reilly's (as Dewey Cox) "Beautiful Ride."

"John and I worked together on a film called "We Need to Talk About Kevin" and I used to embarrass him by playing "Beautiful Ride" whenever he came into the room," she said. "It's truly one of my favorite songs."

It's only fitting that Swinton, who most recently starred in Wes Anderson's "The Grand Budapest Hotel," would have a knack for DJing. The Oscar winner told Variety in this week's cover story that she doesn't consider herself an actor.

"I don't know what it would take for me to feel like one," she said. "I understand it's a strange thing to say because I do keep saying, 'Yes, I'll dress up and be in your film.' But when I hear proper actors talking about their lives and how they approach their work, I feel like I'm up another tree."